"How Dare You Upset Your Celebrity Masters!"

Okay, the New York Times has really gone downhill lately. It's hard to get much lower when you already employ Maureen "Poodles and Lackeys" Dowd, but they've found a way to explore new depths of suckage. Take, for example, this editorial. Apparently, when you demand that performers actually...you know...perform, you're taking away their right to free speech. Check it out:

Something went awry at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas last Saturday night. Linda Ronstadt did what she has done at several concerts across the country this summer. She dedicated the song "Desperado"- an encore - to Michael Moore and urged members of the audience to go see his new movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"The sheeple must be enlightened! Mîkelmür the Conqueror will defeat the evil Bushchimperialist!"

Elsewhere, audiences have reacted to the mention of Mr. Moore by cheering, booing, walking out and sometimes glaring at one another in parking lots.

"Michael Moore makes people think! He presents a different version of The Truth™ so you don't blindly follow the Corporate Media™! What's wrong with starting a little discussion?!"

At the Aladdin, a few audience members tore down posters, threw drinks and demanded their money back. According to one person who was present - William Timmins, the Aladdin's president - it was "a very ugly scene." Mr. Timmins promptly made it even uglier. He had Ms. Ronstadt ejected from the premises.

So...removing the source of the problem makes the problem worse? That's news to me.

This behavior assumes that Ms. Ronstadt had no right to express a political opinion from the stage.

Once again, we hear the "free speech should be free from criticism" meme coming from people who are probably dumb enough to believe it. Ronstadt had every right to express her opinion, but the audience members also had every right to tell her to shut the f**k up and sing. God bless America.

It implies - for some members of the audience at least - that there is a philosophical contract that says an artist must entertain an audience only in the ways that audience sees fit.

Let's see now...who paid to see the performance? Oh, right: THE AUDIENCE. Therefore, they have a right to decide what their money pays for. If they had paid to see a political statement, then we'd have a problem. But they paid for a frickin' concert. If they don't get their money's worth, it's their duty to let the performer know. I guess that if you go to a restaurant and order steak, and they bring you a dead ferret instead, you have no right to complain.

It argues, in fact, that an artist like Ms. Ronstadt does not have the same rights as everyone else.

No, they had the same rights. You're arguing that the audience has no right to criticize the performance that they paid their own money to see. If Ronstadt was paying them, or if it was a free show, she could say whatever she wanted. But they. paid. for. MUSIC.

Perhaps her praise for Mr. Moore, even at the very end of her show...

Oh, was that the free portion?

...did ruin the performance for some people.

Yeah, perhaps it did. Because some people don't like to pay for a concert and instead hear the performer pile praises upon a ponderous populist propagandist. Period. (Alliteration is fun)

They have a right to voice their disapproval - to express their opinion as Ms. Ronstadt expressed hers and to ask for a refund.

So your problem is...what, exactly?

But if their intemperate behavior began to worry the management, then they were the ones who should have been thrown out and told never to return, not Ms. Ronstadt, who threatened, after all, only to sing.

Once again...the audience paid for the show. Since the audience clearly wasn't satisfied with the show, the management had every right to cancel the show. They do have to make a profit, you know. They're providing entertainment, not soapboxes for airheaded celebrities to whine from. I will concede that the ripping of posters could've been considered vandalism, but that wouldn't change the fact that Ronstadt was hurting business, so she got the boot.

Welcome to the wonderful world of capitalism, Linda.

Posted by CD on July 21, 2004 03:23 AM
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